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[Seoul Restaurant Review] Kokoro Bento

Kokoro Bento is a semi-upscale bento shop found in many places throughout Seoul.

By upscale, I mean, the bentos are around 10-15,000 KRW and they are very visually appealing.

The service is usually pretty quick and efficient and the menu is actually pretty diverse.

The meal starts off with a small bowl (complimentary) of egg custard, which I wasn't expecting on my first visit, and a glass of tea.

This visit, I went with the Japanese style pork (char siu) bento. I don't know what possessed me to get pork because I usually avoid it, but this was actually quite good. The bento is super visually appealing.

Looks can be deceiving, however. This may look like it's a ton of food, especially since it's served in what looks like a bucket, but the dish is actually quite shallow. So, maybe about 1-1.5 inches deep worth of food.

I got about 6 slices of thinly sliced roast pork, a potato croquette, and one fish ball. There was also one slice of a seaweed roll. The vegetables included some Japanese pickles, some "crab" salad (as in, crab with a "k"), some bamboo shoots, and some seaweed salad. As with most Japanese bentos, you are also given a side of miso soup. This miso soup was actually ok - not too salty and not too sour.

For the most part the menu is in English, but the orange part isn't, so I'll translate it here:
You can make your meal a noodle set, by asking for a "myun set". For 2,500KRW, you can get noodles and 2 pieces of tofu skin stuffed with seasoned rice. For your yubu chobap, you have the choice between 크래미 (krab meat) and bulgogi (beef).

Honestly, I should have done that for my meal because I would have definitely been full after.
Also, as a note, the koroke are fried Japanese-style croquettes.